Edwin Howe Peery

Edwin Howe Peery

(George Catlett, Archibald, John, James #1)


Edwin Howe Peery was born 27 Jul 1856 in Grundy County, Missouri, son of George Catlett Peery and Ruth Jane Kirk. He married 26 Dec 1900 Patti Anderson Yates, daughter of Anderson and Malinda Harris Yates, of Trenton, Missouri. She was born 9 Nov 1866 in Madison County, Kentucky. and died in the same county 12 May 1908. They had no children.

Edwin was educated at Grand River College, one of the oldest institutions of learning in the State of Missouri, and situated near the place of his birth. He studied law in the State of California, graduated from the law department of the State of Missouri, and from the Columbian (now the George Washington) University of Washington, D.C., receiving the degree of master of law from the latter institution.

He was admitted to the bar in California and also in Oregon, in which state he finally made his residence; and also to the bar in the Supreme Court of the United States.

In 1894, he entered the Government service at Washington, D.C., as examiner in the Civil Service Commission, but was afterwards transferred to the Treasury Department and thence to the Reclamation Service, always performing duties of a legal nature. In January, 1907, on account of the failing health of his wife, he went to Cuba. He was made an assistant attorney to Brigadier General Enoch H. Crowder, who was the Supervisor of the Department of State and Justice under the provisional government of that country under the United States. He spent two years in Cuba, during which time his wife died.

Returning to the United States, for a time he resumed law practice in Portland, Oregon, but later rejoined the Government service, and in 1918 was district counsel in the U.S. Reclamation Service, in which position it was his duty to pass upon titles to all lands purchased by that bureau of the Government for reclamation purposes. He was then located in Denver, Colorado.

Edwin Howe Peery's work of collecting the family records of the Peery family began in 1895 and continued for fourteen years. He took a deep interest in genealogical matters. He turned over his entire collection of 3,600 names to Joseph Stras Peery of Salt Lake City, who independently had been collecting Peery family records from his youth. The compilers of the combined genealogy were indebted to Edwin Howe for the use of his collection. Miss Annie Lynch of Salt Lake City arranged the combined records, which were published as "The Peery Genealogy," in "The Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine," Volumes VIII-1917, IX-1918, X-1919.

Source: The Peery Genealogy, The Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine Vol. X-1919, pp. 22-23, No. 203; supplemented with information taken from the autobiographical Life History of Joseph Stras Peery.

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